TEL AVIV.- The Tel Aviv Museum of Art presents Anri Sala's first solo exhibition in Israel, bringing together works from the past decade and a new sculptural commission. Sala's practice ranges from drawings, sculptors, sound works to performances and live events. His works analyze political situations with sensitive and indirect observation, through personal and collective dimensions. By exploring the linguistic, audial and visual aspects of language, Sala seeks to indicate linguistic limitations as well as the infinite range of possibilities inherent in language and human communication. In recent years, Sala has focused on music and vocals, working with various instruments, players, composers and audio applications, examining the temporal dimension experienced in music and sound.

Sala creates in his exhibitions not only an abstract space for perceptual change, but also a real place for an alternative human discourse. He establishes a theoretical and spatial basis in his works and installations and creates the setting for a place offering a different kind of human communication. This communication might be viewed by some as a language of sorts, by others as a translation or a primitive pre-narrative speech. One way or another, a place for becoming is created—a minor, social, linguistic becoming—which enables a faltering new discourse. Thus the ground is set for a move toward the other and towards an advanced discourse between human phenomena as fluctuating categories.

The exhibition presents the new work Holey Wall (Should I Stay or Should I Go), 2014, as well as the video installation Ravel Ravel Unravel, 2013, based on Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, composed for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm during World War I. This installation represented France at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Sala’s works have been exhibited in some of the world’s most important museums, including the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebaek, Denmark), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Serpentine Gallery (London) and the National Museum of Art (Osaka). Sala was awarded the Young Artist Prize at the 49th Venice Biennale, the 2000 Prix Gilles Dusein, the 2011 Absolute Art Award, and the 2014 Vincent Award.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generosity of The Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel; the Ostrovsky Family Fund; Institut Francais; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.